INTERACTIVE TELEVISION AND VIDEO ON DEMAND*

by

Peter Otte

During the 1960s, the Canadian academic Marshall McLuhan became the apostle of mass
electronic communication, most notably of television. Given to short and memorable statements,
he became famous for one such statement in particular: "The medium is the message." In
referring to all types of media, not just television, both existing and yet-to-come, McLuhan
warned of a society that might someday lose its cultural depth and identity in a perplexing age of
mass communications.

McLuhan passed away in 1980, but were he alive today, what would he have to say about
the proliferation of television sets, MTV, CD-i, 3DO, and the laserdisc player? Would it echo
another famous statement he made, that we are all driving into the future while looking into the
rear-view mirror? Or would he share the opinion of Andy Warhol, who believed that we were all
headed for 15 minutes of fame?

Whatever else is sure to happen with the Information Superhighway, you can be sure to
find interactive, high-definition television sets that transform living rooms into home cinemas,
making Warhol's somewhat absurd remark that much more credible. But not everyone shares
McLuhan's criticism of the medium, as we'll see from the different experts who share their
views regarding "The medium is the message."

In this chapter, we move away from a discussion about computers and focus instead on
that other great competing platform, television. Many experts cite convincing statistics showing
how the television, not the computer, will provide the most common access to the Information
Superhighway. Interactive television, video on demand and home cinema embody the next
generation of audio/video entertainment. But beyond entertainment, the changes about to take
place will permanently affect the way we educate and inform ourselves.

Interactive Television

Television, as it exists now, imparts information in the form of moving images and sound.
Whether it's the news, a sports event, or a favorite sitcom, you recognize television as the source
for powerful images that have an immediate impact. But as pointed out in the previous chapter,
television is a passive medium. You provide no input, nor do you, as a regular viewer, contribute
directly to the content in its ultimate form. Programming proceeds in a linear fashion, moving
from point A to point B at a pre-defined place.

--------------------
* REPRINTED FROM: Peter Otte, The Information Superhighway: Beyond the Internet. (Que
Corporation: Indianapolis, 1994), pp. 115-139.

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 With interactive television, on the other hand, you become a participant in the programming.
For our purposes, interactive means the opposite of passive viewing. In its ideal form, you
direct what you want to see and hear. You choose the news that most interests you. You gather
the statistics and playing history for the star athlete that impresses you most. And, in perhaps
the most striking example of what this medium can do, you influence the ultimate outcome of your
favorite sitcom episode.

Interactive television redefines your relationship to television; you're no longer just a viewer,
you become a player.

PC versus TV

Television also has another advantage: there are many more televisions than there are
computers. "Is the computer going to take over the TV, or is TV going to take over the computer?'
asked Lawrence Ullman. After spending three years as editor-in-chief of Audio Video Interiors,
Lawrence Ullman now holds the chief editorial post with Home Entertainment Technology, a
new magazine set to debut this September from CurtCo publishing. "Ninety-eight percent of
U.S. households have a TV; less than 25 percent have computers. Of the 25 percent who have
computers, how many are equipped for multimedia? A lot less, although the number is growing."

This doesn't mean, necessarily, that people will start word processing or calculating
spreadsheets on their television sets. For that reason alone, some analysts predict that the PC
will have better staying power. Tim Bajarin, President of Creative Strategies, a Silicon-Valley
research firm, estimates the statistic for PC market penetration to be a bit higher. "I am beginning
to believe that the PC will perhaps be the major access device to the Information Superhighway
at least throughout the rest of the decade. Already, 30 percent of the homes in the U.S. have
PCs and we anticipate that by 1998, 60 percent of the homes will have PCs."

Although both views have merit, in this chapter we focus on the television as the primary
access device to the Information Superhighway.

Current Interactive Solutions

"An interactive system has to allow the viewer to communicate back with the programmer,"
claimed Lawrence Ullman. "It can consist of either live programming or recorded programming.
It all depends on the medium that delivers the programming into the home. Currently, it's on CD
in the form of CD-ROM, CD-i, or 3DO. People interact with a limited amount of canned
programming, but they can ask question and branch off into different directions."

CD-ROM... describes a medium format that works with computers. Compact Disc
Interactive, or CD-i, emerged from the research labs of the Dutch electronics giant Philips. Instead
of connecting to your computer, the $500 player connects to your television set. With special
proprietary compact discs, your television becomes an interactive education and entertainment
center. Trip Hawkins, the young entrepreneur with considerably more marketing skill than Philips,
has introduced the 3DO box that connects to the television set in a manner similar CD-i. Both
CD-i (Compact-Disc Interactive) and 3DO, a direct competitor, attempt to surpass the graphics
capabilities of multimedia PCs equipped with CD-ROM drives with advanced technologies.

I asked Ullman about the potential market for these interactive boxes that in most cases
equal the cost of a high-quality color television set. "It's a pretty limited market," he confessed.
"People are only interested in games."

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 "Companies are interested but very cautious," said Mike Chanowski, president of MediaLab,
a Netherlands-based think tank that focuses on the business applications of multimedia: sales
presentations, boardroom presentations, videoconferencing, multimedia kiosks, and other
such implementations of the technology. "They're watching trends, making investigations, and
looking into retrieval technology on a higher intelligence level."

The CD, in other words, represents the current state of interactive television. In the
future, it may evolve into different directions. For example, 3DO has indicated that they may
introduce a special PC adapter that would transform a Windows-based or Mac computer into a
3DO machine. But acceptance of these technologies has been slow. During the crucial holiday
gift-buying season of 1993, 3DO experienced sluggish sales well below analysts' forecasts, and
the publicly traded stock took a similar dive from its initial record-setting high. Sega, known for
the popular game boxes that connect to the television, has introduced a competitor to 3DO and
Philips known as Mega CD.

While sales for CD-ROM drives have picked up, CD titles tend to experience sluggish sales.
You might think otherwise, judging by the proliferation of CD-i, Mega CD, and CD-ROM magazines
that fill the newstand racks, but for a number of reasons having to do with distribution and
marketing, as well as funding, CD publishers require the marketing might of a major
corporation to succeed.

"If you're a CD-ROM publisher and you sell 2,500 CD-ROMs, that's considered a hit," said
Ullman. "Forget about the million bucks that you poured into development. You'll never see it
again. There's just no money in it. The problem is mainly poor distribution and marketing. CD-i
is having a tough time in the U.S. right now because Philips doesn't know how to market,
although they are successful in England."

Perhaps the market has reached an early saturation point. Somehow, these companies will
have to find new customers, perhaps by a combination of perfecting their technologies and
lowering prices. But given the greater success of CD-ROM, doesn't CD-i and 3DO still have an
advantage because of the sheer number of television sets?

They do have an advantage in that it connects to the TV," continued Ullman. "That's why
Nintendo became a hit. But CD-i, or rather Philips, has other problems. While successful in
England, they've had a very poor reception in the States. This is because of poor marketing.
They don't know how to distribute adult information titles, or infotainment, to the right
audience."

Acceptance in the Market

It would seem that both consumers and business have given an icy reception to CD-i and
3DO. Although the companies wouldn't provide specific sales figures, the various dealers have
reported in the press that both products have experienced lackluster sales.

"The level of understanding is very high, but the acceptance level is low," claimed
Chanowski, who would not give specific figures. "Ninety-nine percent of the people panic and
come up with unreasonable excuses. People are not willing to change their views and ideas
during their adult life. Adults don't change their behavior as readily as young people do.
When something really new happens, then it's up to the new generation to accept it as something

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natural. If somebody has been trained in COBOL and mainframes how will they ever accept a
PC-oriented network?"

We must build better applications for end users," continued Chanowski. "In our view, there
will be no applications and end users in the future. The user should be at the start rather than
come at the end of the process. So really the end user should become the begin user."

"That's really the key to all this stuff," said Ullman. "What are people going to pay for?
How much will they pay, and for what? The technology to take us from point A. to point B has
been here for a long time, but if people aren't willing to go to point B, then what's the use? And
until there's interesting programming, then it's all just a bunch of hype."

500 Channels?

Contrary to most reports in the press, we probably won't have 500 different cable
channels to choose from once all the needed improvements are made.

Companies like Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), one of the large American cable
companies, clarify that their newly updated networks will have the capacity for 500 channels, but
dismiss the likelihood, at least in the near term, of 500 different cable channels. The cable
companies plan to offer traditional broadcast offerings, such as CNN and the Discovery Channel,
as well as video on demand (discussed in the next section), pay-per-view, video conferencing,
on-line access, and perhaps even voice telephony.

In other words, they don't want to fall behind. Building this capability prepares them for
the possibility of new and exciting programming options that may unfold in the years ahead. So
instead of finding 50 different talk-show channels and 30 different cartoon channels, for
example, you will find a rich and varied interactive library that will incorporate entertainment,
education, and business.

Entertainment will consist of movies and television programs, but with an important twist:
they will add an interactive dimension. The possibilities for interactive entertainment may shock
some people because they break down the line between the audience and the production. As
pointed out earlier, current film and television programming have a linear dimension: the
beginning, middle, and end of a story's gets told, and that's pretty much it. You may have
control over the scheduling and pausing of the program, but you have no control over the story's
narration. You choose certain elements of plot (does the hero open the door or not?) and
setting (New York or Amsterdam?), to use but two examples. Interactivity expands the role of
the viewer so that he or she becomes an actual player.

Sony's Image soft has created an interactive multimedia title for the Sega Mega CD
called Ground Zero Texas. Aliens terrorize a small Texas town in this $3 million horror/sci-film.
The producers created four separate video tracks from which you can pick and choose among
the different plot possibilities. Philips and Propaganda films came out with Voyeur, an interactive
title that superimposes real actors on digitized background. Virgin just released an interactive
version of Demolition Man, starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes, for the 3DO
format, and they promise versions for Sega, Nintendo, and PC users. The program mixes
video clips of the film with computer generated animation and resembles a high-quality arcade
game, where the hero must wander through a decadent and crime-ridden Los Angeles of the
future and bring the crime lords to justice.
Some marketers have hyped this technology to make it sound as if it's something more
than it actually is. Steven Spielberg has a very secure future ahead of him. Interactive movies

4
won't make directors suddenly obsolete, nor will they make good writers obsolete either. In fact,
while the technology may change, as it certainly will, the fundamental elements of good storytelling
and narration won't. People will always demand that a good story be told, and so the technology
couldn't possibility eclipse the story itself. By story, I mean it in the broadest sense to include
fiction and nonfiction, feature films, and documentaries. Interactivity also robs the viewer of the
element of surprise: a horror movie, for example, scares the viewer less if the latter already
knows the outcome, or determines the outcome. But whether you choose an ordinary film or
an interactive one, you as the moviegoer will have ultimate control over your preferences,
because you can choose whether to be a passive viewer or an interactive player.

The education angle will offer supplementary learning tools that will help continue the
education process at home, not just for children but for adults as well. A child learning
multiplication tables for the first time might, with your partial or impartial supervision, load a
special mathematics course that has been certified by a national education board. Or, to prepare
for a summer holiday trip, you may want to brush up on your French with a special interactive,
multimedia version of the Berlitz course. The software might appear in CD-i, 3DO, or Sega Mega
CD format, or you might download it from a server or online service.

The cable systems will also offer the communications link for video conferencing, the most
important business application to appear on the Information Superhighway. Place a camera
above the set, and your interactive TV becomes a means for two-way communication with
one or more people, linking you with colleagues across the nation, and eventually around the
world. Cable will offer the necessary bandwidth to accommodate video conferencing, as well as
video telephony, where you could talk to someone over the TV set rather than a normal telephone.
For that to happen, the cable companies will have to offer voice telephone services like the local
Bell companies (RBOCs) do. This type of service would have to reach a universal scale for it
to be practical, because most likely you would want to place a video phone call with more
people than just the local cable subscribers in your area.

To be universal in scale, our present phone systems could need to be replaced by these
new video phone devices. While that might seem impossible, think about how long it took people
to replace their record and tape players with CD players--it may happen sooner than you
think. But at the same time, Vice President Gore and other public policy officials want to
make video phones universally accessible, so that even those who fall in the low-income bracket
may still place a video call.

MCI and AT&T have created television commercials that forecast a future of carrying out
business correspondence from the beach, making interactive phone calls, and other tele-
communications wonders that look as if they came out of a science fiction film. But it's not
science fiction at all; these products are coming. AT&T announced a video phone last year (two
such products are needed to make the call). As you'll see in the next chapter, the private sector
and the public sector must remove the Superhighway roadblocks before important business and
consumer technologies like video conferencing and video telephony can be brought to the masses.

"CD technology... enables the content providers to display information in a new form," said
Ullman. "First they're figuring out what content they can give people. The CD publishers have
been forming alliances with Hollywood producers who have the rights to content, because
otherwise the licensing and legal issues would be horrendous. In fact, they are horrendous.
Copyright law is going to be a big growth area in the coming years.

"My wife, who used to work for Philips CD-i, recently produced a disk about gardening.
It's basically a little encyclopedia. You stroll through an on-screen garden and pick your

5
plants from the database. Now, just getting the still photos for this disk involved some really
amazing negotiation. The photographers are very suspicious people and think you're going to
rip them off. This persuades publishers to go in-house, but that can be very expensive. Those
who have large assets, like Time-Warner, are going to have a huge leg up on everybody else."

Already, Paramount has released several titles for the CD-i format, including Black Rain
with Michael Douglas, Top Gun with Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis, and Star Trek VI: The
Undiscovered Country with William Shatner. Don Bluth, the successful animator behind such
successful box-office films as The Secret of NIMH and the forthcoming Thumbelina, has
arcade-style games, such as Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, and has turned them into interactive
animated fare. 3DO, in the meantime, has been focusing more on high-resolution games and
education titles, including The San Diego Zoo Presents... The Animals and The 20th Century
Video Almanac.

I've seen many of these games and titles, and quite frankly, I've found them very engaging
and entertaining. Those who get tired of sitting back and "begging in front of the tube" will find
them to be a much more stimulating form of entertainment because you're an active
participant. You have to make decisions, engage your reflexes, and think through a strategy.
You also learn in the process. The Don Bluth animated games are especially impressive; if you
recall the arcade version of Dragon's Lair, then try to imagine a more sophisticated version of
that I do have two minor complaints with the current games, however. First, I would like to see
better simulations through the use of better graphics and resolution. Secondly, the controls for
the games, such as for Space Ace, require a lot of skill, and therefore patience, to master. It's
not so much the joystick device--although that could use a little improvement--as it is the
responsiveness of the game. The demand for good physical timing and coordination are almost
too great. But given the pace of development, these two reservations should be addressed
rather quickly, perhaps as early as the end of this year in time for the next holiday shopping
season.

During the 1992 presidential race, independent candidate Ross Perot popularized the
notion of the electronic town hall. In this scenario, interactive television performs a useful civic
service. American citizens could register their approval or disapproval with their elected
representatives on various issues, helping to improve the political health of our country by forcing
politicians to be more directly accountable to their constituents.

"Electronic town hall is something on a different level," says Chanowski. "Extending

information to those groups who want fast access to that kind of information can be likened to
an extension of the Internet. It would hold the government more accountable, but I doubt it will
change anything. It will add the possibility of making other kinds of information and lead to
multisectorial understanding. People will communicate better."

By multisecsorial understanding, Chanowski refers to the way that multimedia devices,

such as interactive television or multimedia PC, involve the user by stimulating the different
senses. and the more senses that you can involve during the learning process, the higher
the learning retention. Some efforts have already been made toward realizing the electronic
town hall. You can, for example, leave electronic mail for the President, Vice President, and any
member of congress on the Internet, CompuServe, or MCI Mail. CompuServe has a White
House forum where you can download White House press releases and participate in forum
discussions about important political issues. Unfortunately, the leaders of our nation aren't in
the habit of checking their e-mail frequently. Many messages go unanswered for months.

6
High-Definition Television

The United States and Japan have favored a television standard called NTSC--sometimes
referred to as "Never Twice the Same Color"--that provides only 525 lines of resolution. That's
100 lines less than the European PAL standard, which is short for Phase Alternative Line.
While sufficient by today's standards, they will quickly lose ground to the emerging high-
definition television standard, or HDTV.

By your standards, either might suit your needs perfectly well. But after you've seen an
HDTV set, you'll instantly want one. The colors appear richer and more varied, and as the term
implies, the resolution rivals the silver screen. Even up close, the pixels have become as fine as
grains of sand.

As development in high-definition television began in the late 1980s, two competing

standards emerged. The Japanese had proposed an analog solution that, while inferior to
digital, offered compatibility with existing analog broadcast. The Grand Alliance consisting mainly
of American and European electronics companies proposed a digital standard that easily
surpassed the Japanese recommendation in terms of picture quality, but would require a far
more massive overhaul of the broadcast standards--in short, a more expensive investment in
the Information Superhighway as it pertains to television.

Just this last April (1994) the various interested parties reached a verdict- the digital
standard. "Japan is canceling their analog program," according to Ullman. "NHK and Japan
have pretty much admitted defeat. Japan will now conform to the digital standard. The whole
world is going digital."

What does this mean for the American and European members--Zenith, Thomson,
AT&T, Philips, General Instruments, and others--of the Grand Alliance? "It puts them hugely
ahead, " said Ullman. "And thank God. A worldwide standard prevents a tower of babel. It
means a better picture and digital sound. The sound will be standardized on the Dobly AC3
format, a compressed audio format that's already being used to link recording studios with both
coasts so that they can actually send sound clips back and forth. There won't be ghosting;
you'll get a wider screen, and it locks in better to the image."

Although digital may have a magic aura about it, it does have at least one drawback.
"The problem with digital is that it either works or it doesn't," continued Ullman. Cable is not an
issue,but terrestrial broadcast is. With analog (normal TV), if you're in fringe area, the image gets
fainter, but you still get an image. With digital folks have come up with a scheme that if you're in
a fringe area, you'll still get picture and sound , but you won't get the full HD resolution. It's still
unproved at this point."

Does this mean you should wait until HDTV comes out? Don't hold your breath. The
manufacturers may be ready to produce the hardware, and Hollywood may be primed to create
HDTV-quality footage, but it will still take some time before all the regulatory hurdles disappear so
that the broadcasting companies--NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, BBC, and others--can gain access to the
spectrum they need. The cable companies, on the other hand, will probably move much quicker,
because they don't have to bother with spectrum allocation, or the radio-wave real estate that, in
the U.S. at least, gets doled out by the FCC. The question is, can you wait at least two years
before HDTV becomes really widespread?

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 At least initially, digital HDTV sets will be quite costly. So you may not be able to afford
broadcast nirvana until the supply meets demand and manufacturing costs drop lower. HDTV
sets start at around $5,000 and go skywards from there. As the standard becomes
implemented, they should drop by $1,500 to $2,000 in the next year.

Set-Top Boxes and PCTV

Computers already have a central processing unit that manages the input, output, and
flow of data. Everything about a computer is interactive. The software is interactive. An on-line
service is interactive. Computers, in other words, were designed form the ground up to be
interactive.

To make the television an interactive device, you must attach what's called a set-top box.
These units make it possible for a television to adopt the interactive characteristics of a
computer; at the risk of oversimplifying, they turn a television into a computer (see Figure 1).

Figure 1

In addition to the set-top box, the cable service has to offer the interactive capabilities--
the special programming and interface--so that you can, for example, participate in the
electronic town hall as Ross Perot articulated.

"Digital set-top boxes as an access device will serve a short-term need," said Tim
Bajarin," but its connection to analog TV is a poor implementation and has serious limitations.
On the other hand, the PC as a fully digital, ready-access system is on track to become the key to
true interaction on the I.S."

You may recall that the last chapter discussed how some on-line services, such as Prodigy
and CompuServe, have launched special pilot programs to test the viability of offering their
services over cable. That type of computer connection requires a cable modem--a much simpler
form of technology in that all the local computing still takes place inside the computer's CPU. A

8
set-top box, on the other hand, resembles a CPU, because the television needs a PC-based
CPU to handle all the interactive computing tasks. So even though television sets and
computers may both hook up to the cable network, the television uses a set-top box while the
computer uses a cable modem. Despite some esoteric technical differences, a cable modem
resembles a regular modem in that it converts digital files into analog signals, but instead of
hooking up to the phone line, it connects via wireless RF to a special adapter that plugs into the
coax connection.

Some speculate that set-top boxes will eventually feature PCMCIA slots. You may recall
that PCMCIA defines a standard for credit-card sized memory cards, modems, and other
computer adapters; the PCMCIA slots appear on many portable computers and some desktop
models. Set-top boxes that have a PCMCIA slot offer an easy way to exchange important data
information between the interactive television and your computer. For example, you might
receive a VISA card someday that conforms to the PCMCIA standard. Slip it into the set-top box,
and you can purchase items from the Home Shopping Network. Remove the card and slip it into
your laptop, and you can use it to acquire the new front-end Windows navigator for CompuServe.
Currently, you would have to either call in this information by phone or enter it on-line with a
special electronic form. APCMCIA VISA card, however, would record and adjust the VISA
balance automatically and warn you if you're running dangerously close to the credit limit.
Obviously, you must exert a certain amount of self restraint with such a card, but it may prove to
be an appealing option.

This begs the question, why have a computer and a television? Why not have a high-
definition TV/computer? Two rival consortia advocate that both technologies should merge to
create what's called a PCTV, with the television, CPU, set-top box, multimedia, and cable
modem, as well as some other components, all built into one unit. Intel, Microsoft, and General
Instrument, makers of the set-top cable converters, formed one alliance. General Instrument
supplies the majority of set-top cable converters to the cable industry. Rival chip manufacturer
Motorola joined forces with Kaleida, a joint subsidiary of Apple and IBM, and Scientific Atlanta,
the other principal set-top cable converter company, to propose a competing PCTV standard.

Rival standards have created problems in the past, but not insurmountable ones. For
example, without special software tools called filters, or translators, Macintosh files won't load
using a Windows-based application; even if it does, you can't always be sure of the results.
Although this may create a headache for the consumer, at the same time it creates a healthy
atmosphere of competition and prevents one company or consortium from monopolizing the
market. Macintosh computers, to continue the analogy, run faster and include more capabilities
because Microsoft, IBM, and other hardware and software companies have worked diligently to
improve on Apple's strengths.

Video

Can you imagine what it would be like without video tape? What would we do on those
lazy evening when we don't feel like going out? Watch re-runs of Cheers, I suppose, but that
doesn't seem half as tantalizing as an absorbing film video that you can watch without interruption
in the privacy of your living room. The term video comes from the Latin verb videre, to see.
When they use the word, most people mean video tape even though that is only one instance or
example of video. In fact, video includes laserdics as well--in short, any medium that can store
a moving or still image. Videos often include an audio recording, so in that sense video could be
defined as a multimedia recording.

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 When we use the term video, we're referring to any system or medium that can store
images and sound. Television--broadcast, cable, and interactive--does not fit our definition of
video, because it displays rather than stores images and sounds.

Current Video Types and Players

When the video first became popular, Hollywood felt threatened. Audiences would
stay at home instead of going to the movies, the studio management reasoned. Shortly
thereafter, their initial reaction proved incorrect. Where they delayed video releases as long as
possible, sometimes several years after the theatrical release, now they average a three-month
lapse between the two. Disney and other companies take advance orders of videos by posting
teasing signs that read "Reserve your copy now... BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!"

Hollywood, then, has since come to their senses. If a film doesn't perform well in the
theaters, they rush it as soon as they can to the video stores where they can at least be sure to
break even. Unquestionably, most of a film's revenue comes from the video portion of a release,
helping to mitigate the risk in what has always been a very risky business.

Current video technologies mainly divide into two categories: video tape and optical disk.
Video tapes, by far the most common, conform to the Video Home System format, or VHS. The
Japanese electronics manufacturer JVC originated this format that has since become the world
standard, although some minor technical variations appear between continents. The "C" in
VHS-C stands for compact and emerged when palm-sized camcorders offered the same
recording quality as larger home video cameras. VHS-C tapes replay on VHS-compatible VCRs
using a special cassette housing adapter. Video-8/8mm works with camcorders as well and is
widely supported, but it won't play back on VHS players. Professionals who demand a higher
quality video format resort to the U-matic standard, which requires a special player.

Video cameras, especially camcorders, have all but replaced Super-8 film cameras. You
don't have to become a technician in order to learn how to use the equipment, and tapes play
back as soon as you eject them out of the camera. You don't have to make a trip to the local
camera shop to get the film developed. Video tapes also cost relatively little, and the video
cassette recorders that run them have also come down in price substantially. The film
studios still shoot their films in 35-mm format, then transfer them to video for distribution.

Laserdiscs offer superior picture quality during playback, but they haven't caught on that
well because you can't record on them. The VCR, or video-cassette recorder, comes in handy
because you can program them to record your favorite programs on cable or broadcast
television, then play the shows back at your leisure. Laserdiscs, like their cousin the CD-
ROM, forego recording capability in favor of superior playback. If you demand the best in
picture and sound quality, then just walk into any home electronics store and note the difference.
Unlike the analog video tapes, laserdiscs offer digital image and sound quality that
corresponds to the superior audio quality of CDs (compact discs) over audio cassettes.

On VCRs, magnetic heads come into contact with the magnetic tape in order to read the
analog signal. Laserdiscs, on the other hand, utilize a laser beam that bounces off the platter
and converts the data into an image (see Figure 2). Not only is this a more precise method, but as
a result laserdisc players offer a more precise image and sound quality because of the absence
of

10
 Figure 2

friction. Without getting sidetracked into a discussion of the behavior of light, a dust-free
laserdisc generates a cleaner signal. Those who can afford to often obtain both a VCR and a
laserdisc player to get the best of both worlds: recording capability and superior playback.
But because there are fewer laserdisc titles than video-tape titles, those who can't afford both
usually opt for the VCR.

Prices for laserdisc players have already dropped hundreds of dollars from their
introductory prices. The capability to write to laser exists now, but only for industrial use. Sony
just introduced the Mini-Disc product; although it's an audio CD, it does pave the way for
developments in the video/audio market. So, it's safe speculation to assume, without specifying a
time frame, that we may soon see recordable laserdisc players.

Some new types of video software have emerged into the market lately--mostly for
entertainment, although with some business uses. The Video CD standard uses the compact
disc form factor and promises to eliminate some of the confusion that afflicts those interested in
the multimedia market. Some predict that Philips' CD-i, 3DO, and others may someday gravitate
toward this standard, so that, for example, owner of the CD-i player won't have to wait before a
title becomes available from the Dutch electronics giant.

Video on Demand

Given the enormous popularity of video, American film companies, as well as production
companies around the world, will continue to release their properties in the video format as long
as it contributes to their revenue. While that seems assured, future video formats seem less
definite.

The cable companies and telephone companies have banded together to research and
develop a technology called video on demand. Current cable programming follows the passive
viewer model: you have to tune into a cable presentation at the precise moment that it is
broadcast, much like standard broadcast television. Video on demand will enable you to
choose the most convenient time for you. Instead of going to the local video store and hoping
that the title you want is in, video on demand lets you "rent" the video without leaving the comfort
of your home, just by selecting the title from your television screen.

11
 To accomplish this next step, the cable and phone companies will have to create an
enormous database of digitized films. These video servers will require the processing might of a
mainframe computer and parallel processing, not to mention special operating system to run on
the servers. If you subscribed to such a system, you would see a front-end not unlike Microsoft
Windows or Macintosh, and you would use some kind of pointing device or mouse--perhaps
built into the remote itself.

DEC, the Maynard, Massachusetts computer giant, introduced a video server last October
based on their Alpha AXP chip. If everything goes according to schedule, the cable provider US
West should have implemented a pilot by the summer of 1994. Interestingly, DEC will incorporate
at least part of the 3DO interface, extending the life of that product.

IBM has targeted the high-end corporate environment with their Ultimedia line of video
servers in that represents a different strategy entirely. They envision video on demand as a tool
for corporate training, or for interactive video kiosks that stand on a showroom floor, such in an
auto showroom or an electronics showroom. An update to that line should come out mid-year.
Other companies working on a video-server line include Hewlett-Packard, Silicon Graphics, and
Sun Microsystems.

Reactions

Despite the rosy picture, two of our experts express skepticism.

"You mean movies on demand?" replied Lawrence Ullman when asked what he thought of
video on demand. "So What? It's a block to my video store. I pay $1.50 for a video and I can
watch it whenever I want, stop it whenever I want, and play it as many times as I want. Are
they going to deliver service that's going to be as convenient as that? It's a huge challenge to
set up such an enormous digital database, and somehow it's got to be downloaded. Video
tapes already start and stop when you want them to."

Mike Chanowski, who focuses on business applications rather than consumer

applications, gave an equally tepid response. "I've looked at the concept of video on demand
and I have to say I'm not thrilled with it. I'm just not interested. At best, it changes a pattern of
behavior. Instead of going to Blockbuster, people stay home in their living room. But what's
new about that? From a merchandising point of view, it's interesting to see how people compete
to give more service to the consumer, but I doubt people will spend more time or money looking at
films."

Still, companies like US West and Time-Warner, another company seeking test sites,
will cull plenty of data by the end of the year. If the pilots reflect the above attitudes, then this
may turn out to be a short-lived technology, although that remains to be seen. After all, IBM's
"corporate video kiosk" strategy may turn out to be profitable for them. Video on demand may
succeed more with business than with entertainment. And price will have a big effect on market
acceptance.

No Place Like Home Cinema

Like a shy boy and girl at high-school dance, the television and the hi-fi used to sit in
opposite corners of the living room--destined for one another, and yet one very much incomplete
without the other. With the advent of the Sony Trinitron and all the various successors, the
picture quality has improved at a much faster pace than the built-in speaker system. In a

12
separate but parallel development, audio grew by leaps and bounds with the advent of Dolby
Noise Reduction and the all-important introduction of the CD.

Only recently have manufacturers consummated the perfect electronic marriage.

Serious cinema-philes around the globe transform the living room or den into a home theater.
Play Star Wars, and you feel the need to duck as the Imperial Star Cruiser thunders overhead.
Bullets ricochet off your four walls as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid flee the posse. And
you wince when Dirty Harry utters the most memorable words of the last decade, "Go ahead,
make my day." The combined effect of superb quality audio and video make actors come to life
and the entire viewing experience a compelling as the neighborhood cinema.

As television and hi-fi converge in the home cinema, imagine what happens when home
cinema converges with the Information Superhighway. Interactive services, high-definition
television, multimedia games, the electronic town hall, PCTV, and other service offerings will
tremble in significance.

"What's going to happen is that people are getting prepared to have high quality audio/video
programming," predicted Ullman. "No matter what kind of platform--CD, fiber optic,
satellite--they're going to need some kind of equipment to view. The Information Superhighway
and the new programming are only going to make how theater that much more valid and that
much more important in everybody's lives."

Why Go to the Movies?

With all these exciting developments, why even go to the movies? "Good question," said
Ullman. "People go to the movies to get out of the house. The silver screen is still a bigger
screen, the theater sound is really big."

The technology has a ways to go yet before catching up with the richness of the actual
cinema. A favorite movie still receives a thorough hacking around the edges so that it will fit on
the narrow television frame. They call this process cropping. The 4 x 3 aspect ratio of television
simply won't fit the 35-mm print otherwise. Some vendors, such as Nokia and Philips, have
introduced wide-screen televisions with a 16 x 9 aspect ratio. A wide-screen version of Aliens 3,
for example, made a significant improvement. On the 4 x 3 version, only Sigourney Weaver
appeared on-screen talking to another actor off-screen. On the 16 x 9 version, on the other
hand, you see actor Charles Dance listening to Sigourney Weaver. If the film does not conform
to the wide-screen go unused.

Letterboxing poses a different solution to the problem. Instead of cropping the image to
fit onto 525 lines of NTSC, the video image narrows vertically so that the outer edges fit. As a
result, the image only fills roughly two thirds of the screen, but hard-core cinemaphiles tend to
prefer this treatment as nothing gets removed from the image.

Until high-definition television comes into the main, however, we still have to choose
from among these solutions that, each in their own way, fall well short of the mark. HDTV needs
to replace the NTSC and PAL standards. Now that the world agrees to a universal digital
standard, manufacturers will in all likelihood soon bring HDTV sets to market, making the
present situation a minor, temporary problem. And it would seem that only then will the home
cinema truly be worthy of its name.

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 "You save the movies as a real special event," said Ullman. "Often, the experience of
going to the movies is more annoying than it is enjoyable. Theaters are going to have to become
more of an event, just, like it was in the golden age of the movie palace. Back then, it was
something more than just walking in and turning down the lights. The movie houses are going to
have to turn up the technical act. Maybe they'll have arcade in one room, virtual reality in
another."

Sound Spaghetti

Do all these important advances really require the Information Superhighway for them
to come about? Even without interactive TV or the electronic town hall, people will still have
advanced home systems which to play their favorite movies.

"It's a parallel movement," said Ullman. "[The Information Superhighway] is getting people
prepared to consume high-end audio and video. Hopefully, they'll put together these system
that function as a system instead of an uncoordinated pile of pieces like they tend to be now."

Even the least inclined can manage hooking up the television to the aerial and VCR. Most
of the confusion, however, comes from the sound portion of the installation. To achieve the
surround sound dimension, several different components must link your hi-fi amplifier and speaker
setup to your TV set.

At the moment, prices for a complete home theater setup range from about $1,500 to
upward of $40,000, depending on the quality of the setup you desire. Either figure may exceed
your annual film-going expenditures, but then anyone who wants to invest in the ultimate
entertainment system may have other priorities. In addition, the unofficial price axiom of
electronics states that everything eventually falls in price. The question remains, how long will
it take for the prices to fall?

While the market sorts out this important matter, we'll help you sort through th sound
spaghetti. In the earlier section "Video," we examined the state of television and video
technology. To complete the picture, let's take a look at the sound dimension by covering the
range of choices available now, and what interactive home cinema enthusiasts can expect to find
in the not-too-distant future.

AD Decoders

In anticipation of all the wonderful goodies we've covered so far in this chapter, the
modern fleet of television sets possess enough jacks to hook up a VCR, a laserdisc player, CD-
i (or one of the other multimedia game sets), and a special component that links this
electronic montage with the sound system.

The AV decoder provides the foundation of the home cinema system. As you might
suspect, the letters "A" and "V" stand for Audio and Video, respectively. It takes the audio signal
and routes it to the various speakers in a balance and, one hopes, organized fashion. The
amplifier boosts the signal and drives, or directs, the surround sound speaker channels.

Choosing an AV Decoder mostly depends on your existing setup and, naturally, your budget.

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Dolby Sound

Ray M. Dolby, an American physicist, patented his first noise-reduction standard, Dolby
A, in 1965 while working for Decca Records in London. Dolby Labs introduced a number of
patents since that time the culminated in 1976, when George Lucas and 20th Century Fox brought
Star Wars to the screen. Forty-six theaters around the U.S. showed the film in Dolby Stereo and
as filmgoers will remember, the picture's remarkable sound quality contributed as much to the
excitement as the dazzling visuals on the screen. Since that time, 16,000 cinemas worldwide
have equipped their theaters with Dolby Stereo, and some 5,000 films since Star Wars bear the
Dolby logo. As Larry Ullman alluded earlier, the Grand Alliance chose the Dolby AC-3 standard
for the HDTV standard. First debuted in 1992 in the sequel Batman Returns, AC-3 provided the
basis for the SR-D sound standard used in the film.

Dolby licensed both Dolby Surround and Dolby Pro-Logic for the home cinema market.
The first uses only four speakers, with two in front on either side of the television and two in rear.
Two rear speakers, called "surround speakers," stand positioned a little behind the couch (see
Fig.3). Dolby Pro Logic, the better of the two standards, specifies the placement of a fifth speaker
above or below the television set. This fifth speaker functions as the dialog speaker and, as the
term implies, produces the vital sound from the dialog track. Installers recommend placing the
dialog speaker above the set so that it either rests on top of the set or hangs from a position on
the wall (see Fig. 4).

Figure 3

15
 Figure 4

If you want to get into home cinema now, the experts recommend that you junk any TV
with less than a 25 inch diameter otherwise; the sound system will overwhelm the image. If
you want to avoid fussing with wires and components, and assuming that you're not patient
enough to wait for HDTV, you may opt for the all-in-one solution. Hitachi and Toshiba market
television sets that already incorporate the AV decoder, making installation a much simpler
proposition. It means you won't have to fuss with wire and tracking down which cable plugs into
which jack. The speakers come with the system.

But suppose that you own an upscale hi-fi system, such as a Kenwood system, that already
contains surround sound capability. Just add two speakers for the surround sound, and you
have a Dolby Surround system that works surprisingly well. You may then upgrade further to
either Dolby Surround or Pro-Logic by adding a Dolby processor, such as the Mordaunt-Short
Decoder One.

Such a unit contains the circuitry and amplifier to prime the dialog and surround speakers,
leaving the remaining amplification duties to the stereo amplifier, which drives the front left and
right speakers.

Moving one notch higher, the cinema-phile will opt for an AV amp that integrates both the
Dolby processor and the power to amplify the four (Dolby Surround) or five (Dolby Pro-Logic)
channels. The amplifier charges the speakers so that they produce the sound. The Dolby
decoder, on the other hand, works like a computer CPU that directs the different sound tracks to
the appropriate speaker so that you get a full, rich, and balance sound quality. With the
integrated approach, the experts like to point out, you run the risk of getting an inferior amplifier.
The lack of modularity also prevents you from upgrading different components at a time as
advances and funds dictate. Accordingly, many want to purchase the amplifier and AV
decoder separately. While this solution takes up more shelf space and creates more of a
challenge during the installation phase (you may require the assistance of a professional
installer), it does afford a future upgrade path leaving more options available.

The absolute, top-of-the line home-cinema audio solution brings us back to the producer
of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and other big-screen epics.

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THX

The very day that Star Wars opened in the theaters, George Lucas sneaked into a local
theater to gauge the audience reaction. To his unbridled dismay, he discovered that the
remarkable sound effects that he and his sound crew had worked so diligently to create in the
dubbing studio barely dribbled out of the tinny speakers that theater management referred
to misleadingly as a sound system. He immediately met with his Star Wars technical director,
Tomlinson Holman, to develop a strategy for replicating the excellent sound quality of the dubbing
studio in theaters across the country.

More than 30 years earlier, Walt Disney had attempted the same with Fantasia, but very
few movie palaces at the time could afford, let alone fit, the enormous projection equipment that
Disney's film required, so the effort failed. I'm not sure whether Lucas was conscious of that or
not, but he did set out to create a sound specification that generates superb stereo sound in an
attainable manner.

THX stands for Tomlinson Holman experiment and harkens back to Lucas' first cinematic
effort, the sci-fi drama THX 1138. THX does not compete with Dolby and therefore shouldn't be
considered a rival standard. It just improves on it. It uses the five speakers of the basic Dolby
Pro-Logic configuration and throws in a few sub-woofers for good measure. Macintosh, Harmon
Kardon, and Lexicon all manufacture THX processors and amplifier. The THX processor and
amplifier alone cost at least $10,000. The sheer dimension of the speakers brings certain
domestic considerations to the forefront. For example, are you willing to risk divorce? Are you
ready to have the police come knocking on your door after 10 PM? And are you willing to make
major architectural changes to your lounge area to accommodate the mammoth loudspeakers
and replicate the pure acoustics of the theater? If you're willing to spend this kind of money,
then you should probably plan the theater portion during the blueprint stages or consider making
an addition to your house.

Now and Future Layouts

The current state of the art in home cinema suggests different configurations and layouts
that depend on whether you select the Dolby Surround, Dolby Pro-Logic, or the TXH standard.
That much we've covered so far. Whether you have four, five, seven, or more speakers hooked
up, you still presently face the dilemma of solving space problems. While they aren't as tall as,
say, a chest bureau, they still occupy space.

The minimalists invoke their motto, "Less is more." That could characterize at least one
approach to technology in the home, particularly as it relates to home cinema. In a few years,
you might fit an entire home cinema, complete with all the interactive trappings, into a smaller
space, saving you the trouble of having to clear out the antiques and heirlooms to make room for
the $4,000 home entertainment system. Aided by the demand for better-sounding car-audio
systems, hi-fi manufacturers already produce small-scale amplifier, receiver, and speaker
systems. In part, they create custom style cabinets to impress the audio-philes who strive for
harmony, beauty, and balance in the home setting. If you want, you can purchase low-profile
audio systems for your living room or den, although they tend to be more expensive. Just check
any issue of Audio-Video Interiors for further information about this. Well-known speaker
brands include Bose--known for their power and small form factor--Polk Audio, and Infinity.

17
 But the television still stands, at least for the time being, like an ungainly Goliath in the
middle of the living room. Minimalists and space conservers alike struggle to find room for the
monster cinema box--particularly the high-end projection television that barely leaves enough
room for your furniture. But if all goes right, as it almost surely will, someday you will fit both in
the same room, thanks to pivotal developments in Liquid-Crystal Display (LCD) technology.
Pioneered for use on electronic devices such as the notebook computer, the LCD panel could
eventually replace the television monitor.

The standard television set implements a cathode-ray tube (CRT) that beams red, green,
and blue light through a vacuum against a reflective coating on the inside of the screen. In its
simplest form, an LCD consists of two sheets of glass separated by a sealed-in, liquid crystal
material. More recently, LCD panels use plastic rather than glass to improve durability and
clarity. A transparent conductive coating covers the inside of the glass or plastic. When a
voltage is applied, the liquid-crystal molecules prevent light from passing through, creating
different effects and colors.

An LCD offers many advantages: it weighs less, it takes up less room, it gives off less
EMR (electro-magnetic radiation), and it consumes far less power. Pioneered for use in the
portable computer, the largest color active-matrix LCD panel, appearing on the ThinkPad line
from IBM, measures 10.4 inches diagonally. Building an LCD television now would not have
much practical use, especially in the home cinema. An LCD manufacturer, like Sharp,
could mount four smaller panels in a frame, but it would leave vertical and horizontal seams.
And, as pointed out earlier, the hi-fi system would dwarf a 21-inch LCD television. In addition,
LCDs must achieve higher brightness levels to compete with larger monitors. When
manufacturers learn how to introduce a bright, 30-inch LCD screen for the comparable price of a
regular television set, consumers will flock to the stores for one.

No wonder, then, that companies like Sharp, Philips, Toshiba, NEC, and Display
Systems continue to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into upgrading their LCD
production facilities. LCDs will become standard on all appliances eventually, but they
have particular relevance to the home cinema. Some day, you may sit down before a wall-
screen television, as the science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury once imagined in his seminal work
Fahrenheit 451.

Risks and Rewards: Fahrenheit 451 Coming to Life?

The information Superhighway comprises technologies as diverse as computers, on-line

services, and television and, as we've seen in the preceding pages, links them in ways that will
surely enrich and empower out lives. But as much as I celebrate this technology, I must share or
impart a sentiment of caution and genuine concern. Maybe you feel the sentiment as well. And
it just wouldn't be sane and right to cheerlead this technology without presenting the opinions of
those who have asked us to look again at the society that we are about to create.

American science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury, French film-director Francois Truffaut,

Canadian academic Marshall McLuhan, and even the American Pop icon Andy Warhol have all
communicated a similar message of warning: that in this age of media, as embodied by
television, we risk falling into a state of mindless conformity. Some have found their views
far-fetched and strident, but all the same they merit out attention and force us to ask the
question, could this technology actually threaten our culture?

18
Life inside the Vacuum Tube

In 1966, Universal Pictures released a Francois Truffaut film entitled Fahrenheit 451.
Based on the novel by Ray Bradbury, the title refers to the temperature at which paper
burns. In the near future, the government forbids everyone from reading books. Firemen start
fires rather than extinguish them: specifically, they instigate book burning as a way to enforce
mindless conformity. Books create unhappiness. Instead, they encourage everyone to watch
television: game shows, political propaganda, and every sort of witless drivel that bears a
disturbing resemblance to today's broadcast and cable-television programming.

The plot gets melodramatic in places, but it still reveals some disturbing themes that apply
even now. Television penetrates 98 percent of American households. Nobody really knows
about the long-term affects of viewing, although some recent studies have shown that
excessive violence in film and television programming does correspond to an increase in
violence. Ever since the nationally televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon during the
1960 election, presidential candidates have bowed to the might of the medium. In the belief that
people have shorter attention spans, politicians commonly resort to 15- and 30-second sound
bites in order to convey their message. And instead of going to the trouble of hiring a babysitter,
some mothers seat their children in front of the "boob sitter."

I don't want to blame the media, because that implies they're one giant, monolithic
corporation. Yes, there are media conglomerates, and they are powerful, but remember that they
also compete against each other. Although some evening news broadcasts have switched to
airing shorter stories, don't forget programs like McNeil/Lehrer News Hour, Washington Week in
Review, and Meet the Press that delve into current topics in more depth. I think if anything, it's a
reflection of our society. If the media found that viewers wanted longer quotes of the President,
for example, they'd change their format. But there seems to be a growing segment of the
population that likes to get all the news--including election information--in the time it takes to
heat up their frozen dinner in the microwave.

Without jumping to facile conclusions, let's take a look at the ideas of the most popular
media figure of 1960s.

The Apostle of Mass Communication

Declining test scores, a crisis in our schools, sound bites, video bites, mindless conformity,
and other signs of an imploding culture provoked Marshall McLuhan to warn us about the effects of
mass communication. During the 60s, at the height of his popularity, he once declared pop
culture both "monstrous and sickening" and yet, he made his living writing commentary about
the very thing despised. In a funny way, Marshall McLuhan became part of pop culture he
intended to censure.

Born in Edmonton, Alberta on July 21, 1911, Herbert Marshall McLuhan taught at the
University of Toronto from 1946 to 1966. His theories about media and society created enormous
controversy during the 1960s. In 1952, he presented his first significant work with publication of
The Mechanical Bride:

Folklore of industrial Man. In this work, McLuhan argued that the characteristics of mass
communications technologies such as television determine the experiences of the viewer far
more than the actual content. He also advanced the radical notion that the "grammar" of mass
media parallels the human central nervous system. His works include The Gutenberg Galaxy

19
(1962), Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964), and The Medium Is the
Message: An Inventory of Effects (1967).

While a student at Cambridge during the '30s, McLuhan came under the influence of
two leading members of the New Criticism--I.A. Richards and F.R. Leavis--who proposed
that language had no fixed meaning and that words depended on their context to convey
meaning. Advancing this theory one step further, he created the famous slogan, "The
medium is the message." And while he didn't predict that firemen would someday burn books
instead of put out fires, he did prophesy the obsolescence of the book, and with that, the
decline of logical sequence. Electronic mass communication, he wrote, would create a global
village where everyone demanded a quick fix.

Pop psychology has replaced psychotherapy, where the instant solution to a problem bears
more weight than the individual's history and formative years. While television engages our
senses, it undermines our relationship to the printed word; audiences imbibe information through
all their senses, instead of through the sequential abstractions formed by one word connected
to another. As Alfred Glossbrenner once pointed out, why read the newspapers to find out what's
going on in the world when you can tune into Headline News and get a digested summary in 30
minutes (including commercials).

Maybe this isn't such a bad thing. With all our senses engaged, maybe we do retain
more. If the medium is the message, then what kind of message do we get from MTV, or from
Donahue, or from Dynasty or any of the other popular programs that exist now and the thousands
more that will fill the less than 500 channels in the Superhighway future? MTV epitomizes what
Andy Warhol meant by everyone becoming famous for 15 minutes. Maybe it's unfair to single
out MTV, since they obviously try to balance their programming mix with more thoughtful
programs and the admirable reporting of Tabitha Soren. But in this information age, why do
we thrive so much on pop culture? I fear that trendiness threatens to replace innovative and
creative thought.

McLuhan often went to extreme measures. He bought the last television on his block. His
children could watch only one hour of television per week. And he once advised a somewhat
bemused Jerry Brown, then governor of California, to enforce a limit on the state's viewing
habits for their own good. Any of these solutions involves a type of censorship that bears a
disturbing similarity to Bradbury's novel. Regulating the viewing habits of our people as well as
the content of our programs would contradict the spirit of our Constitution. And yet, we must
determine exactly what effects long-term viewing produces on the mind. It then must become
the responsibility of us all to regulate our own viewing habits and not become mesmerized
and desensitized by the incessant assault on our senses.

The Issue of Censorship

Excessive violence and nudity has fueled controversy over whether the rating system
protects viewers or impinges on their fundamental right to watch what they want. The British
have alleged a connection between Tom Holland's Child's Play 3 and the killing of Jamie Bulger,
an innocent British schoolchild. Closer to home, Travis Bickle, the lead role played by Robert De
Niro in the 1970s film Taxi Driver, supposedly persuaded John Hinckley to make an attempt on the
life of Ronald Reagan. Imagining himself as Travis Bickle, Hinckley fired into the Presidential
coterie, wounding the President and shooting Nicholas Brady, the White House Press Secretary,
through the head. Though Brady eventually recovered from what could have been a mortal
wound, he must spend the rest of his life in a wheel chair.

20
 The child killing Britain has persuaded James Ferman, director of the British Board of
Film Classification (BBFC), to prevent the video release of a violent American film Reservoir
Dogs, starring Harvey Keitel. While shown in the cinemas around Britain, the BBFC won't allow a
video release until a survey exploring the link between media violence and violence in society
has been completed and the results tallied. If they prove such a link, then the civil rights defenders
will vigorously protest any action made by the BBFC to restrict or otherwise prohibit private home
viewing of film matter deemed violent.

Reservoir Dogs is a violent film, but not any more violent than Taxi Driver or Child's Play 3.
The British have expressed concern over the alleged link between violence in the media and
violence in society, but they have created a double standard by allowing Dogs to be shown in
the theaters but not in people's homes. It has less to do with the film's content than it has with
the timing of the release; had it come out before Child's Play 3, then the video release probably
wouldn't have been blocked. It raises the question of personal responsibility as well: shouldn't
people be allowed to make their own decisions with regard to what they can and can't watch, or
do they have to have the government make that decision for them? And shouldn't the criminal,
not a film about criminals, receive punishment instead of the other way around?

In the United States, the Brady incident influenced the creation of hand-gun legislation
that became known as the "Brady Bill." While it won huge support from citizen action groups and
ordinary citizens alike, the National Rifle Association, thought by many to be the most powerful
lobby in the U.S., successfully blocked its passage until President Clinton signed it into law just
this last year. While Secretary Bentsen has introduced even stiffer requirements for gun dealers
(such as higher licensing fees), many fear that the loopholes won't help to curb the steady
increase of violence in America's urban centers whether perpetuated by psychotic maniacs
who imagine themselves to be Jodie Foster's avenging angel, or the Bloods and Crips of Los
Angeles who routinely participate in drive-by shootings.

Short of the undesirable consequence of becoming a totalitarian society like that depicted
in Fahrenheit 451, we hold the palm-sized solution in our own hands: the TV remote.
McLuhan, unfortunately, would have leaned perhaps to the kind of solution he first suggested to
Jerry Brown: something along the lines of state rationing. You don't need the government to tell
you what you can and can't watch. Be selective in what you and your children view.

Having thus pounded the proverbial pulpit, let me conclude this chapter with a "word-bite" of
my own: Embrace the technology, but remain the master of it. Use the power button.

****

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